PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

A writer in the Wall Street Journal has drawn an appalling stupid on the quid pro issue.

It is this:

• On one hand stands President Donald Trump who dangled a quid pro quo pro to Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky in an effort to rig the next presidential election in Trump’s favor.
• On the other handstands House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who, it is said, offered a quid pro quo to prod her Democrat colleagues to vote in favor of impeachment when it reaches the House floor next week. [For the record, she denies “whipping her members, which is Congress talk for trying to compel votes.]

The difference?

Trump sold out the country for his personal gain, thus creating an incredible taint on the next presidential election. Meanwhile, Trump acolytes in the U.S. House want us to wait for that tainted election.

Pelosi, by contrast, did the work of being a political leader by rounding up votes in a legislative body, even as she averred she would not try to compel members to vote one way or the other – as if she could compel in the first place.

She did not sell out the national interest for her personal gain.

For Pelosi, there is no illegal quid pro quo.

For Trump, there is an illegal quid pro quo.

If we needed more evidence of Trump’s misdeeds, the Ukraine case is stark and growing starker — if that is a word.

As California Representative Eric Swalwell has summarized: Investigators learned that Trump sent Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to get dirt on Joe Biden, directed two ambassadors to work with Giuliani, fired an anti-corruption ambassador to Ukraine, told Vice President Pence not to go to the Ukrainian inauguration, had his staff chief withhold Ukraine’s military assistance, refused a White House meeting with Ukraine’s president, ignored his advisers’ anti-corruption talking points, asked the Ukrainian president for “a favor” and for an investigation into opponent Biden, confirmed it publicly, asked China to do the same, and blocked investigators from learning more.

Trump is still doing it. Guilani just returned from Ukraine and will be telling Trump about new dirt he has dug up against Joe Biden.

Enough!